What We Do
TMF is a non profit, social investment organization that leverages its
networks to provide resources to innovative, visionary and useful Native
enterprises throughout the Northwest Region - the West Coast from Northern
California to Canada, to Idaho and Montana. We assist in the development of
effective projects that can have a positive impact through fiscal
sponsorship, fundraising, and by providing logistical support.
History
Seed funding was generously contributed by the Falcon Fund in 2004, launching Tierra Madre Fund (TMF) as the first women's fund in the United States created by and for indigenous women. Through the support of women and youth, artists and cultural keepers, TMF seeks to amplify the voices and grow the leadership of indigenous peoples. We work to infuse today's knowledge and technologies with traditional indigenous wisdom and to help fuel the sustainable environments movement in Indian Country. We strengthen linkages between Native and non-Native, local, regional, national, and international people working to advance social justice and the re-development of sustainable local economies. Our focus is on sustainable economies education, food security, and cultural regeneration. We raise funds to support our programs and to give small grants to important initiatives.
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Mission
Tierra Madre fund is a catalyst for the development of sustainable indigenous communities by providing partnership, networks and resources to support innovative projects and to build the leadership of women, youth, artists and culture keepers.
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Vision
We recognize that people liberate themselves. We envision Indigenous people as leaders of a movement to a sustainable future for our country, as we carve a path toward that future. We will be agents of helping our grandchildren to be the future, the keepers of the culture, the language and of the balanced ways of the medicine wheel.
Sustainable indigenous communities are at the core of our work, which always seeks to balance the energies of the spiritual, emotional/community, mental/mind, and physical/body. This is the lens through which we view our work:
Highlighting our spiritual selves, we focus on inclusion of proper protocols and traditional indigenous wisdom in all that we do, in honor of our ancestors.
Working within the mental sphere, we utilize our individual and collective gifts, talents and experiential learnings in a commitment to service by following our best pathways;
Within the emotional arena, we nurture culture, community development and our heart ties to the earth and the interconnectedness of all creation;
And working through the intention of our physical selves, we focus upon the health of our bodies and minds, in honor of our creators’ gift of life.
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Values
We are committed to defending our Earth Mother and saving biodiversity. As caretakers, we pledge to do our part by honoring the interdependency of all life and our responsibilities.
Solutions and wisdom reside in the community. People will guide their own destinies, based on the remembering of deep wisdom acquired throughout the millennium, and the realities of our lives, today.
We practice decolonization in our work. We create our own definitions and ways of operating, based on traditions. We will avoid the temptation to change our work in order to acquire funding.
Whatever we do, it must have a link to a sustainable past. We practice a respectful co-dependency with our common past.
Tierra Madre fund is inclusive of all people, but we center our work on indigenous women, as they are the heart of the people.
We focus not on the individual, but on community. We build leadership based on an indigenous model where leaders follow the people.
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